Taking Flak excerpt: Pastorini looks back on last stand with Oilers

Taking Flak: My Life in the Fast LaneBy DAN PASTORINI with JOHN P. LOPEZ

Dan Pastorini’s memoir, “Taking Flak: My Life in the Fast Lane,” will be released Thursday. The book, written with Sports Radio 610 talk show host and former Chronicle columnist John P. Lopez, includes passages covering Pastorini’s wild life with the Oilers during the Luv Ya Blue years. It’s also available at taking-flak.com.

We were delayed again leaving Pittsburgh. I went to the back of the plane and just wanted to be alone. I sat in the jump seat at the back of the plane with all the flight attendants that always took care of us. Jackie, Kathy, the whole bunch. They weren’t just flight attendants.

They were nurses.

I was tired of everything. I was tired of always taking flak. I was tired of always hurting. I was tired of losing for so many years. I barely could walk in Pittsburgh. I was beat up. I was drained. I thought to myself, “How the hell do we beat those guys without killing them? Do we have to go out there with guns and shoot ’em?”
We played the Steelers two and three times a year for all those years.

Those two games, those two championship games, those were the true Super Bowls. We were the two best teams in the NFL, but we had nothing to show for it. They had Super Bowl rings.

I drank a couple of scotches and a few beers, drowning my sorrows at the back of the plane. I sank lower and lower in my seat, then looked up and saw (Oilers coach) Bum (Phillips) walking down the aisle toward me.

“Ah, (heck),” I said. “No. Not now.”

Bum walked up to me, looked me dead in the eye and said, “Daniel, I’m really proud of you. You played like a warrior. You played hurt. You did everything I asked you to do. Do you still feel like you did last year?
“Do you still want to be traded?”

I exhaled, paused, looked at him and said, “Yeah. Yeah, I do. It’s probably best for everybody. Play Giff. Trade me. Do what’s best for the team.”

“Well,” Bum said, “you’re a man of your word. You played your (butt) off. I’ll trade you. Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere on the West Coast.”

It hurt Bum when I told him I wanted to be traded, I could see it in his eyes. I think he wanted me to say, no. He wanted me to say that I wanted to make another run at the Steelers. And deep down, I did. I wanted to beat those guys and I wanted to do it with the guys on that plane. But I just said what I felt.

I had a limousine waiting for us again when we landed in Houston.

Bum and I got into the same limousine, with (Carl) Mauck and (Ted) Thompson.

Bum and I were the only ones who knew this would be our last ride together. The roads were packed again with fans honking their horns, hanging over bridges, waving, yelling. The Astrodome was beyond capacity and there were 20,000 people outside stuck in traffic. It was a bigger and crazier scene than the year before, which I thought I never would see again. I rode around the Dome on the back of a police motorcycle, then got on stage and sat behind Bum when he got up to address the crowd. I had my elbows on my knees, thinking, “Am I doing the right thing? Will I be better off? Yes, I will. No, I won’t.” The Gemini in me was roaring.
Then Bum uttered one of the most memorable lines in NFL history.

“Last year, we knocked on the door. This year, we banged on the door. Next year, we’re gonna kick that sumbitch in.”

I looked up to the roof of the Astrodome, looked around at the crowd and said to myself, “Not with me.”

Bum traded me to the Raiders for Ken Stabler.

Taking Flak, published by AuthorHouse, is available at http://taking-flak.com. Pastorini will sign copies from 2 to 4 p.m. Thursday at Carrabba’s Italian Grill, 3115 Kirby.